In
Strasbourg I had to get used to a
bike to travel around the place. I loved cycling in a
pretty, non-polluted
French city, but I was terrible at it, coming from London and never having really cycled before.
The bike seemed to be possessed. Once I was cycling innocently down a riverbank bicycle path, and somehow managed to whack straight into a "Watch Out" roadsign - it came out of nowhere I swear!!!. (To be fair to sign was in French so I couldn't read it, but thats not really the point because you don't ride into roadsigns whatever they say)
My worst injuries occured however when the girlfriend's bloody dog ran in front of my bike when I was going full speed down a forest path. Clever boyfriends will try to avoid running over SO's dog, so I press brakes hard and turn just a little. My bike stopped, but did I?! Did I fuck, I flew off the bicycle seat and landed hands first into some sharp stones.
Bleeding profusely with scraps of the remaining skin hanging off my hands I was glad I had a girlfriend to comfort me. Did she comfort me? Ha! did she bollocks.
"Stop acting like a five year old" was the mean, crushing response, to me, the hero who had avoiding running over the bloody dog and lost skin and blood in the process. Out of shock I shutted up and stopped acting like a five year old, and just sulked instead.
I forgave the dog and my girlfriend later that day.
The next day however going down the same forest path and the dog did it again. I braked again and flew off my bicycle seat again. Grrrrrrrrrr!!!!! This time said girlfriend was more sympathetic - lucky for her! After that I just wanted the dog to do it again so I could run over it, never got the chance sadly.
My friend Gaz had the uniquely funny experience of being hit by a car when he was cycling. What's uniquely funny about that? Well the car was actually parked and empty, when he turned a corner and drove into it. Managing to cycle into a parked car beats even my experiences. He had several stiches in his top lip, which still looks mangled to this day - ouch!